{Originally Published on Recovering Straight Girl}

The smell of fall is in the air here in the Pacific Northwest. I’m not really ready to let summer go but fall is my favorite time of the year. More than January 1st, fall feels like the time to begin again–a new year–a new time of possibilities.

We’ve had a fun summer and I’m beginning to be ready to dive in to the world again. I’ve been cleaning things up in my office, my home, and in my head. Taking stock of what I have, what I need, and what to do next. It’s a little exhausting at times, but I know it will all pay off in the end.

I was having some apprehension about starting school again. HG and I decided that changing schools would be a good idea and I applied to the school I want to attend last spring but did not follow up on my admittance until just last week. I think I was having anxiety about it and figured if I put it off too long I could just take some online classes at the community college I attended last term. But I did decide to follow up and did send them the info they needed and did register for classes as a non-admitted student until everything is processed. Yesterday I filled out all of the financial aid info that I know they will need as soon as everything is processed, cleaned out all of my files, recycled an entire garbage can of paper, and got ready to mail two important items that will (yes, Universe, WILL) bring me some money.

I’m making room for great things to come my way.

In a few hours I will pick up my father from the airport for his visit here with us. I don’t think that I realized just how anxious I am about this visit until I woke up this morning at 2:30 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep. Usually when something is coming up that I’m not sure about I just put it aside and deny it awhile. It works out for me actually, because I think while I have it set aside in my denial I somehow process through it a little bit.

This visit brings up a lot of things for me. Obvious things like Why Now? Why Now, after all this time, does my father want to come and visit? I’m glad he does and I’m very much looking forward to it but I still hear that voice in my head that says, “What’s wrong with me that he didn’t want to come before?”

Originally published on SoapboxMom

Have you heard John Mayer play the guitar? Better yet, have you been lucky enough to attend one of his concerts so that you could actually watch him play the guitar? Ahhh, grace in motion.

Before going to his concert this summer, I listened to his music, but didn’t truly appreciate it. I mean, it was nice to have playing in the background, nice to sing along with occasionally, but didn’t exactly make me sit down and breathe it in, you know what I mean?

Then I saw him perform live. Oh. my. goodness…

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Originally published on The Suburban Scrawl

Let’s face it: teenagers are good at making others, especially their parents, nervous. If you’re the parent of a young child, you are probably dreading the teen years because of all the horror stories you’ve heard from others, not to mention the memory of what you did at that age. In fact, the Teen Years are nothing to be scared of. All you need are a few tools to help you navigate the road, including a sense of humor and lots of patience!

My two teen-aged boys are great kids, and my husband and I are very proud of the consistency with which we’ve raised them. One of the most successful strategies we’ve used with our boys is to let them know what we expect in advance and sometimes in writing (you never know when you’re going to need proof of policy; also, it’s best to close those loopholes from the get-go!).

We used this strategy for the first time when we set up our older son with his cell phone on his fourteenth birthday. Unlike most of his friends, who were gifted with a no-obligation cell hone by their parents a couple of years before, our son knew that it was absolutely a big deal when we decided he was ready for one. When he read the rules we prescribed for his cell phone, he was – in a very un-teen like manner – seemingly relieved. A teen from another planet? No. Just a great kid.

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